Under an Ash-Stained Sky
by furyofthetimelords
Summary: Bucky Barnes is ready to die - after all, what is there to live for at the end of the world? However, fate has other plans. [warnings in author's note]
**A/N:** This fic has been kicking around in my head for almost a year now (I started writing this in like, July last year), and I've hacked out a few different versions before finally feeling like I've got it right. So here it finally is. Or, at least half of it. I know how it's going to end, but writing that takes time.

 **Warnings for this chapter:** blood and gore, injury, vomiting, minor character death, suicidal ideation (not very directly, but like a 'let me die already from this injury' sort of thing), panic attacks, discussion of war and killing. Further spoiler-ish details in the end notes if you're interested.

* * *

The End, or Where it Begins

The grocery store is quiet, which suits Bucky jut fine – it's a good a place as any to die. His head feels fuzzy as he stumbles through the aisles, not even bothering to keep quiet anymore. On the bright side, the ache in his arm is nothing but a dull ache now.

He collapses in what was the cereal aisle, leaning against the empty shelf in amongst the decaying cardboard and food, feeling oddly at home. Here he is, just another abandoned thing in the wake of the apocalypse. He lets out a hysterical giggle at the thought.

Time starts to pass sluggishly, and he can feel the blood starting to dry on his arm – any time now, he's going to pass out, and after that, death. He looks over at the now-defunct clock, wondering exactly how many minutes or hours he has left. Why does dying have to be so damn _slow_? Bucky would rather it be quick.

After another immeasurable amount of time – it could've been two minutes or two hours – Bucky hears someone enter the grocery store.

Despite the fact he knows he's almost dead, Bucky freezes.

He hears the intruder walk around, and the click of a gun as this stranger moves further in. Bucky hopes it'll be quick. If he's going to have any luck, it might as well be now.

 _Make it my dying wish_ , Bucky thinks absently and closes his eyes. He hears the intruder creep closer. But instead of hearing the crack of a gunshot, Bucky hears the stranger pick up his pace and _run_ towards him.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" the stranger says all in a rush. The voice is deep and masculine, almost soothing. It makes him want to fall asleep listening to this guy talk.

Bucky laughs weakly, because _clearly_ , he isn't fine. He opens his eyes to look at the stranger.

For a moment, Bucky doesn't know what to say. There's genuine concern on the stranger's face, which is far cry from the expressions he's seen on the last people he met. Bucky almost wants to punch the guy, because, _holy hell_ , this fucker shouldn't be trying to help him. The stranger should've just shot him already and run off with his stuff. That's how this works.

"Can you tell me your name?" The stranger asks. His eyes are bright blue, bluer than most things Bucky has seen in a very long time. He's muscular too – weirdly not as emaciated and gaunt as Bucky would expect. It makes him tense up.

He doesn't answer the stranger's question. It's best not to encourage stupidity. Hell, he doesn't want to even _talk_ to this guy.

"Can you speak?" the stranger asks again.

"You should leave. It's not safe here," Bucky says. It's the best he can offer right now.

The stranger smiles softly. "It's not safe anywhere," he replies.

Maybe he isn't that stupid, but, he's still clearly insane for not putting a bullet through Bucky's head the moment he saw him.

"My name is Steve," the stranger says conversationally.

Bucky meets this with silence. There's no way he's going to be bated into bullshit niceties in the fucking apocalypse. That time has long since past.

"If you don't want to say anything else it's fine," Steve says. "You don't owe me anything."

Bucky, in this moment, just wants to die already so Steve will leave him alone. Or if he could, he'd get up and leave this fucker alone in here and find somewhere less populated to die.

"You're hurt," Steve says with genuine concern.

"I'll be fine," Bucky says lightly. "I'm gonna be dead soon anyway."

Steve gets this strange stubborn look on his face. "Not if I can help you," he replies. "I'll leave you alone after, but I'd feel better if you let me."

"You don't need to do that," Bucky insists, panic rising in his throat. Why can't this guy take a hint and leave? What does he want?

Steve shakes his head. "It's no worry. I want to help."

Bucky snorts. "Well, you're the first. Most people would try to kill me, especially guys your size."

Steve frowns. "The world shouldn't be that mean."

Bucky snorts. "Yeah, well, try telling _that_ to the people who shot me," he says. "And let me guess, you think we're gonna get out of this too?"

"No," Steve replies. "I just don't think the world needs to be this cruel. Everything's bad enough without people trying to murder each other."

He says it with such conviction that Bucky pauses for a moment. He's met enough whack jobs out on the road, people who announce the Good News with glassy eyes and bibles clutched in their hands. Steve doesn't look like them, even if he's saying the same kind of shit. There's some kind of clarity there. Either that, or Bucky's worse off than he thinks he is.

"So, how much do you hurt?" Steve asks. "Be honest here."

"I don't need you to help me."

"Just let me, please," Steve says, and Bucky sighs.

"Fine," he says. "And the pain is about a five now? Less by the minute."

"Hold your arm up," Steve instructs, and Bucky obeys. "How long has it been since you got shot?"

Bucky shakes his head. "I don't know. A while."

"Well, your arm isn't broken. You just hit an artery," Steve says. "I'll just need to get a tourniquet, and some stitching, then you'll be fine."

Steve moves closer slowly, hands in full view as he reaches out to touch Bucky's side. His hands are cool and gentle. It's a strange feeling, the skin on skin contact from another person. He's suddenly aware of exactly how long it's been since the last time someone touched him, even in violence.

"You're really hurt," Steve says with a frown. There's no malice in his voice, just more of that damn concern.

"Could be worse," Bucky says with a shrug. He could be dead already.

"Well, it's a good thing I came prepared," Steve replies, moving back towards his pack and pulls out a canteen, a proper fucking tourniquet (Bucky almost falls over in surprise) and bandages, along with needle and thread.

Steve opens the canteen and Bucky catches a whiff of alcohol. "Alcohol," Steve says absently.

"That for me?" he asks.

"For my hands, and your arm," Steve replies, pouring a small amount into his palms and rubbing it onto his skin. Then, he moves to Bucky's side and begins to pour some on the wound.

It hurts like hell, but Bucky keeps his mouth shut. There's no need to cry or scream out in pain. Besides, he's had to get pretty good at keeping down the screams.

"You certainly don't pack light," Bucky comments, eyeing off Steve's gear. It looks pretty high tech, not the kind of thing you just find. He wonders if Steve killed someone to get it, but quickly dismisses the thought. The fucker probably hasn't even killed a fly, let alone a _person_.

"I like to be prepared," Steve says, as he threads the needle. There's an almost cute look of concentration on his face as he does it. Bucky shoves that thought way down and ignores it.

"You a boy scout or something?" Bucky asks.

"No, too sick for that kind of thing," Steve replies absently, moving back towards Bucky's wound.

"Bullshit. You don't look that sick to me," Bucky says suddenly realising Steve's roped him into a conversation. He feels like he should shut up and let Steve do his good deed of the week, but despite that, he wants to talk. There hasn't been anyone like that around for longer than Bucky can remember.

"I was as a child. It's kind of a miracle I even made it past my tenth birthday. If it was an illness, I probably had it."

"That why you got such a bleeding heart for the dying?"

"I like to help people, and you're really not dying," Steve says. "This might hurt."

Bucky braces himself for the pain, but all he feels is a few sharp pinpricks as Steve begins to stitch up the wound. It catches him off guard, especially after the sting of the alcohol.

"You're not too bad at this," Steve comments as he finishes the stitching.

"I've had practice," Bucky says.

"You're going to be okay, you know?" Steve says.

"I wouldn't have been."

"I'm glad I can help," Steve says, all genuine.

"Doesn't mean I owe you anything," Bucky says quickly.

"I never said you did," Steve says simply. "I told you, I just want to help."

"You're too nice."

"I try," Steve replies. He's smiling again. Bucky feels slightly less like he wants to punch the guy this time. "Now, let's get you wrapped up."

The bandaging takes a while longer, and neither of them say anything as Steve wraps the bandages around Bucky's arm. They're so white that Bucky almost has to double take, wondering if they're actually real. He hasn't seen anything this clean in a long, long time.

 _Maybe this is one big hallucination_ , he thinks. It seems like the most logical explanation at this point.

"What's so funny?" Steve asks suddenly. Bucky realises he's been laughing.

"You. You're unreal," Bucky replies. "Nobody around here is _nice_."

"Well, I guess I'll just have to be nobody," Steve says, a small smile on his face.

Bucky doesn't know what to say to that. Steve finishes with the bandages and secures them with a simple knot. They both sit there for a second, neither moving.

 _This is the part where you're supposed to go_ , Bucky thinks to himself.

"So, uh, thanks," he says awkwardly, unsure of what to say now. Their time is up, and there's no real reason for Steve to stick around now. Bucky can't quite figure out why he's so bothered by this thought. It's not like he even really knows the guy.

"It's fine," Steve replies. "Just make sure you take care of it. Where are you going now?"

"Keep going?" Bucky says with a shrug. "It's not like there's really any time to make big plans out here. It's the end of the fuckin' world."

Steve stands up and holds out a hand for Bucky too, which he takes, ignoring how good it feels to touch someone. There's no time to get attached now just because Steve is the first person he's encountered that hasn't shot at him in a very long time.

"You could come with me?" Steve says. The request is almost shy. "I mean I'm going north – to New York."

"What's there?" Bucky asks, and then regrets the question the moment it comes out of his mouth.

"I heard it's better there."

"We've all heard it's better _somewhere_. How can you even be sure?" he asks. The idea of a 'better' place has always been around since the beginning. People used to move in droves to the place they thought had to be _better_. Bucky never put much stock in the idea back then, and he certainly wouldn't now. The world's been fucked over, and no amount of wishing will make it okay again.

"I can't," Steve says with a shrug. "But New York was good to me once."

"You lived there?" Bucky asks. It's a bad idea to ask questions about the past, but he's not quite ready to let the conversation drop just yet. The realisation surprises him.

"Yeah, when I was a kid," Steve says.

"Me too," Bucky says softly. He wasn't even sure he was going to say it until the words out are out his mouth.

Steve brightens at Bucky's reply. "Really?"

"Yeah," Bucky says.

"You ever wanna go back?" Steve asks.

Bucky shrugs. "I guess I could," he finds himself saying. "Got nothing better to do, anyway."

Steve gives him a small, bright smile. "Then let's go."

/

"You don't smile much, do you?" Steve comments once they're on the road. They'd been pretty quiet for the past few hours, slowly starting to learn how to get used to travelling with another person, or, at least Bucky was.

He still feels weird about it, and maybe that will pass, but right now there's something that settles uncomfortable in his stomach at walking _with_ someone as opposed to away from them.

In response to Steve's question, he just shrugs. "Not much reason to."

"Steve frowns at that response. "Shouldn't have to be like that."

"What? Like you spend all day making jokes at people before this?" Bucky asks.

"No," Steve replies. "It wasn't like that before."

"You're a fucking strange one, you know that?" Bucky says.

Now it's Steve's turn to shrug. "So I've been told."

"You know other people out here?" Bucky asks.

"Not especially," Steve says and then turns to look at something. "Hey – there's another store out there. Do you think anything's left?"

Bucky looks over to where Steve is pointing. It's another one of those roadside gas stations with a tiny convenience store attached. Or, it was, once upon a time. Now it's nothing but faded paint and broken glass.

"Nah," Bucky says with a shrug. "Everything around here's been raided."

"Oh," Steve says, disappointed.

"I don't get why you're so surprised," Bucky says.

"There were a lot more places out where I was," Steve says.

"And where were you?"

Steve just shrugs. "Around. I'm not sure where I was going, honestly. I was just wandering."

"You find all of that stuff wandering?" Bucky asks, gesturing to the high-tech bag of stuff.

"South – some guy's cabin, I think." Bucky eyes him carefully, looking for a hint of a lie – but everything about Steve is screaming honesty. "Why did you ask?"

Bucky shrugs. "Just wondering."

Steve gives him a look, but doesn't say anything to that. "You ever wonder how it got this bad?" Steve asks out of the blue.

"You know how it happened, don't you?" Bucky asks. He thinks back to when there was television, and all those reports on night after night. Then the eventual collapse that caused the storms and fires that didn't stop burning for weeks. There's still the fainted smell of ash in the air, and a constant greyness to the sky.

"I don't mean the whole Collapse – I meant, like this," Steve says and gestured to the open space ahead of them. "Lonely – like there's nobody looking out for anyone anymore."

Bucky just shrugs. "People take care of themselves first."

/

Though they do go for long stretches of silence, Steve does seem to keep the conversation going. Mostly, he talks about himself – about who he was before, way back when the apocalypse was just some far-off anxious dream. Apparently, Steve was an artist.

"I wasn't anyone special," Steve says. "Honestly, most of what I did was design commissions anyway."

Bucky tries to imagine that kind of life. What would it have been like, to live like that? Even in the before, his life was still measured in violence – but he tries not to think about any of that too hard. It's too difficult to put it all into words. So, when Steve asks him about what he did before, Bucky lies. Someone like Steve, even in a world as fucked up as this one, shouldn't have to hear shit like that. Sometimes, though, he's temped. And _that's_ a scary thought.

"But what about you?" Steve asks, not so casually. He keeps trying to drag stories out of Bucky – he's not pushy, but the curiosity is there. Some part of Bucky wants to tell him, but every time he gets close his throat closes up and a tight, anxious feeling settles in his chest. Talking about it means thinking about it - _really_ thinking about it. And Bucky sure as hell isn't going to touch that can of worms. _Ever_.

"I got around," Bucky replies.

"You know, I'm starting to think you were some kind of spy," Steve jokes.

Bucky just shrugs in response.

"Before I was an artist, I was a solider," Steve said suddenly after they'd lapsed back into silence.

Bucky looks over at the man, trying to fit _soldier_ into the list of things he knows about Steve. "Really?"

"Yeah, for quite a while," Steve says. "Gave it up when it got too much."

Steve looks a little uncomfortable there, and Bucky wonders what kind of story there is to it.

"Same here," Bucky says after a long moment.

"Didn't last long?" Steve asks.

"Something like that," he says and reflexively curls his fist, the memory of violence making his head hurt. Suddenly, the memories are sharp in his mind, of a place far away with desert sands and gunfire as its constants, a place where he spent his days squatting in dark corners with a gun, looking through the scope and pulling the trigger.

He looks out at the horizon – the ashy sky and the dead ground. There's almost nothing out here now, but this place could almost be another warzone. The end of the world isn't so different to his life before. Sure, the sand has become ash, but he's still stuck in dark corners waiting for the enemy to strike.

"You saw a lot of shit, huh?" Steve asks.

"That's one way of putting it."

Steve nods. "I can understand that."

"I did worse," Bucky adds, just to see how Steve reacts.

Steve just looks at him, gaze unblinking. "Did you want to?"

"Fuck, no," Bucky replies.

He thinks about his so-called commanding officer – the fanatic conviction with which he spoke about every mission. For a long time, he believed the man, let him lie and spin half-truths that had Bucky believing this was the only way to do it.

He thought he was saving the world.

 _But the world ended anyway_ , he thinks.

"Then you shouldn't blame yourself," Steve says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Bucky goes silent and feels the tears well up in his eyes.

"Thanks," he says so softly he isn't sure Steve hears him.

/

On the ninth day, Steve spots someone else on the horizon. They're not far from New York now – only a handful of days left. With every mile that goes past, Bucky can see the visible ways in which Steve seems to light up with excitement. He still thinks all that hope is misplaced – people have been talking about 'safe zones' since the beginning, but Bucky knows they're all a lie. Nowhere in this world is safe now, though Steve doesn't seem to get that.

So really, it's no surprise Steve reacts so positively to the sight of more people.

"We should go over to them," Steve says, nodding towards the figures on the horizon – it's a hazy day, so they haven't got much of a visual, so Bucky can't tell much about who's out there.

"No," Bucky says flatly. He's already pushed his limits trusting Steve, and he honestly doesn't think he has it in him to like anyone else. Besides, watching multiple people at once would be _exhausting_. One is enough for him.

"They could be good people," Steve argues.

Bucky shakes his head. "You don't know that. Besides, you're the only person I've met out here that hasn't taken a shot at me first. We're safe now so don't fuck that up."

Steve looks like he wants to argue, but he just presses his lips together and runs a hand through his hair, making it dirtier. There's always been a perpetual layer of grime over everything, but with these hard days of travel, it only makes everything worse. The only way they've been able to keep Bucky's wound clear from infection is alcohol and a not insignificant chunk of their water supply. Bucky worries about it, but Steve insists it'll be better once they reach New York.

They end up moving on from there, but Bucky catches Steve looking over his shoulder more than once, watching the hazy figures move along in the distance even after they disappear. Bucky wonders if those people had spotted them and are now lying in wait, ready to fight. So, he keeps his hand on his gun, ready to fight at a moment's notice.

"I'm not stupid, you know," Steve says some hours later, as he changes Bucky's bandage.

"Huh?" Bucky says, focusing back in on Steve.

"Just because I want to help, doesn't make me stupid," he replies.

"I never said you were – but honestly, you haven't exactly proven to me you've got the best survival instincts."

"I was a solider. I know how to handle myself – besides, I made it this far."

Bucky nods. "Yeah, you have. But it's weird, you know? People don't trust people anymore. But you just come up and help a guy without knowing he's dangerous."

"I had a gun."

"You dropped it the moment you saw me."

"Because you were hurt."

"I might not have been worth it."

Steve pauses at that one. "But you were," he replies, and finishes tying off the bandage.

The response startles Bucky into silence. He'd been expecting Steve to say something against him. But. He hadn't.

Bucky isn't sure what the hell to make of that.

/

The next day, a figure appears ahead of them on the road. Bucky freezes where he stands, and watches the traveller move forward. Whoever is out there, they must be some kind of hurt from the way their movements look – jerky, awkward shifts that indicate some sort of leg wound.

After a while, the figure stops and waves, clearly spotting Steve and Bucky.

Bucky puts his hand on his gun. Steve steps forward, but Bucky reaches out with his other hand to pull him back.

"Wait it out," Bucky orders. "Could be dangerous."

"They're hurt."

"Wait," Bucky repeats. "And get your gun out."

Steve pulls it out reluctantly, but he just holds it at his side.

"Who are you?" Bucky calls out once the figure gets close enough – it's a man, clearly well built, but not like Steve. Something about the man sets Bucky on edge, but he can't quite place it.

"Brock," the man says.

It's just one word, and shouldn't mean anything, but it makes something in Bucky's mind shift. Suddenly, the pieces fall into place.

" _You_ ," he spits, anger bubbling up. He'd forgotten about Brock, but once the memories come back to him, it's a wonder he ever forgot.

Brock's eyes widen with surprise for a moment, but that shifts into a lecherous grin as he recognises Bucky.

"Soldier," Brock says.

It's that one word that marks Brock Rumlow for death. . Bucky shoots him – just once in the head. Blood sprays everywhere, and bits of bone and gore paint a mosaic on the ground. The body collapses to the ground with a soft thud, almost anticlimactically.

"Not today," Bucky says softly, but Brock's too dead to hear it. His death was too quick – quicker than Bucky ever wanted it to be, but then again revenge hadn't been on the agenda. Besides, he wasn't sure he wanted Steve to see _that_. There were some things that just shouldn't be seen by spectators.

"What the _fuck_ ," Steve says. He moves away from Bucky, hand clutching the gun. He looks like he's ready to shoot now.

 _So you're not totally stupid_ , Bucky thinks. He calmly drops the gun and holds up both his hands.

Steve still looks angry and confused.

"Brock Rumlow was bad news," he replies. "He would've killed us both – or worse."

"He was h—wait, you knew him?" Steve asks. "Is that how you treat all your friends?"

"Brock wasn't my friend," Bucky replies sharply. "I did what I had to."

He doesn't want to explain this, to expose his awful history to Steve, but he feels like he might have to if Steve doesn't calm down. Selfishly, he wants to just run away and leave, let Steve think him a senseless killer so he'll never have to speak a word about his history. But. He's too used to Steve now – the comfort of having somebody else there in travel, someone to talk to in the silence.

"What was he to you, then?" Steve asks.

Bucky opens his mouth to explain something, anything, but he makes the mistake of glancing at Brock's body.

It's not the sight of the corpse that makes the bile rise up in his throat – that's the memories. So instead of explaining exactly why Rumlow was a sick fuck that deserved to die, Bucky vomits, legs shaking so badly he falls to his knees. There's not much in his stomach, so the actual vomiting is over fast, but he still dry-retches. He doesn't want to be like this, but it's like this killing has opened a floodgate in his mind and all he can see is death and torture and pain – all things he's tried so hard to shut out.

"Bucky?" Steve asks softly. He sounds worried.

Bucky takes a deep breath and wipes away any residual vomit away. He looks down at his hands where they're pressed against the ground, unable to recognise his own body for a second.

"Bucky?" Steve asks again.

He takes another deep breath, and pushes himself up off the ground. He still feels shaky on his feet, but he needs to _move_.

"I'm fine," he lies. "If you still want to come with me, I'm going now. Brock probably had company."

With a herculean effort, he manages to walk past the body and towards the road again. He doesn't look back to see if Steve's following him.

"Wait – Bucky – don't," Steve calls out, and runs to catch up. He grabs Bucky's arm and forces him to stop.

"What?"

"I'm still going with you," Steve says. "Just – fuck. Tell me what happened there."

Bucky shakes his head. "Later," he says and begins to move forward. "We really do need to get going."

Steve looks like he wants to argue, but perhaps something on Bucky's face stops him. He gives a short nod, and then starts to move off again. Bucky follows behind, head still stuck on the memories.

/

Later that night, when they've got a low fire burning as they try to warm up, Bucky speaks again.

"Brock was responsible for part of this," Bucky says and rolls up his sleeve to reveal the scarring. It's barely visible in the low light, but Bucky holds it close to the firelight so Steve can see it clearly.

Steve looks up at him. He'd been staring at a fixed point in the ground. "How so?"

"You know I was a soldier for a while," Bucky says. "But that's not the whole story."

"You don't have to tell me."

"I need – well, I mean, you need to hear this. It'll make sense once I tell you," Bucky says.

Steve doesn't say anything to that, so Bucky takes that as his cue to speak. He doesn't look at Steve's face, instead just fixes his eyes on his own scarred up arm, letting the memories come back.

"I was a sniper – so you know, it wasn't like I went into any of that expecting to _not_ kill people. I knew I'd have blood on my hands, and I'd made peace with it – because, as fucked up as it sounds, that what I thought was right.

"I was fucking good at it too – kept getting better and better and of course, people noticed, but not the good kind. Long story short, I got offered a particular job – it was some classified shit, as far as I could tell. I thought it was just deep cover – hell, one of my Commanding Officers recommended it to me.

"It was fucking great at first, you know? That was probably the worst part. The fucking training they put me through – I should've known something was up. But I kept telling myself this was all part of a bigger plan. A little hurt now was nothing, y'know?

"I should've really clued in by the time they started giving me 'missions' – they were always so insistent about the secrecy and the non-optional nature of what I was doing. I let it happen – figured that was just how it was for a new recruit.

"Brock was one of my trainers – and eventually the head of my 'team'. He led missions, told me where to go and who to kill. Sure, I followed orders, but Brock was something else. He always liked to push things. I didn't say anything, because well, I couldn't? He was practically my boss.

"It was the worst when he made me go on missions without a gun - just me and a knife. I thought I was doing something good – killing the bad guys so nobody else had to. That's the fucked up thing about this – they told me I was _good_ and that all of this was justified.

"But it wasn't. I know that now – I can't even explain how it was. Everything just seemed so _normal_ for what it was. I thought this was what I was supposed to be doing.

"It wasn't until I got hurt," Bucky said. "Got unlucky with an IED – nearly crushed my arm in the debris. I expected to be let go, but they just –" Bucky breaks off, suddenly choked by the memories. He hasn't thought about them in so long, but they all come rushing back at once.

"You don't need to tell me about this part," Steve says softly.

Bucky shakes his head. "I need to," he grits out, and takes a deep breath before he continues. "They didn't even care I'd gotten hurt, after it happened. I got no time off, no leave or even a pay bonus - just this fucking scarring.

"That's when I started to really question things. Until then, I guess I could just pretend it wasn't wrong. It was also about then they decided I needed a little 'reconditioning'," he says, and laughs humourlessly.

"I was hooked up to some sort of machine, and then _bam_ , memory gone.

"I didn't even know who I was for a while, they fucked me up that much - still not sure, actually."

"How much do you remember of your life before?"

"Enough," Bucky says. "I got a little better, y'know, once I got out, but then the world ended and well, I guess there's not much point to it now."

Steve lets out a deep breath. Bucky looks up at him for the first time in the conversation. Steve's gaze is fixed on him, and the clear focus makes Bucky's head hurt a little.

"I didn't like killing," Steve says suddenly. "It's why I left."

"You've killed people?" Bucky asks. It's hard to picture, especially with the way Steve looked when Bucky had killed Brock. But maybe he was just one of those guys who couldn't handle that shit outside of combat; Bucky had met enough of those guys – toss them out into the middle of a warzone, fine, but get a paper cut when they're off-duty? Gone. Can't handle it.

"No – I didn't," Steve confesses. "Well, not directly. I did let a lot of people die because of my mistakes."

Bucky laughs humourlessly. "Isn't that the fucking truth?" he replies. There would be a lot more innocent people alive today if he hadn't taken that fucking job.

"At least you had a choice about leaving," Bucky says finally.

"I guess I did," Steve says. "How did you get out?"

"A fuckton of luck. Eventually, something snapped," Bucky replies. "I just ran. Eventually, some government people picked me up – I wasn't hiding, so they found me easy. Took forever to explain it, and honestly, I'd probably be dead right now if the world hadn't ended. I was supposed to go on trial, but then things got too fucked up and they didn't have time for police or justice."

"I'm sorry," Steve says, like any of this is his fault.

"Don't be. It's all in the fucking past now – but hey, it means I've made it this long. There are plenty of people who should've killed me. Like that bullet wound – I should've been dead," he says, trying to infuse some sort of levity back into the conversation.

"It didn't look that bad," Steve says with a frown.

"It was worse," Bucky replies. He'd really thought that would be it – that the limits of his body had long since peaked and this was one push too far.

Steve lets out a breath. "That fast?"

Bucky just shrugs. "I don't make a point of testing it."

"You're smarter than I was. Soon as I was strong enough – I joined the army. Always wanted to, even when I was skin and bone. Even tried to enlist once, back when I was skinny. They had the good sense to refuse."

Bucky snorts. "I'm not surprised."

Steve rolls his eyes, and suddenly the mood is light again.

Bucky cracks a small smile. It feels strange on his face, but no less right.

He thinks: _maybe this will be okay_.

* * *

A/N:

Spoiler-y details on warnings: Bucky vomits after killing someone and has a panic attack that makes him disassociate a little, talks about his history as a sniper as part of the army and how he got sucked into something horrible.

Not sure when I'm going to update next, as I'm gonna be busy as hell over the next few weeks as Life happens (guess who's making a short film! I'm excited, but holy fuck it's so much work), but if you're curious I also have a 60k+ Stuck superhero/roommates AU fic (I swear it makes sense) which I must say is so much lighter than this one. However, this isn't going to be much longer than an another chapter or two (tentatively set this fic at two chapters, but that might change).

Find me on tumblr agentalien


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